Somak Mukherjee
Areas of Interest & Expertise
- Contemporary global anglophone literature
- Literary and cinematic urban studies
- South Asian cinema and media theory
- Air, pollution, and atmospheric justice
- Eco-fiction and climate narrative
Biography
Somak Mukherjee is a literary and media scholar working at the intersections of environmental humanities, postcolonial studies, and urban cultural theory. He completed his PhD in English at University of California, Santa Barbara, where his dissertation, Elemental City: Ecology, Media, and Narratives of Crisis in Postcolonial Calcutta, traced how earth, air, water, fire, and blood shape narratives of ecological breakdown. He has held long term research and teaching appointments at University of Tübingen, the University of Bologna, and University of Paris 8.
His work examines how novels, cinema, and everyday cultural forms render environmental risk perceptible, with attention to atmospheric politics, media infrastructures, and environmental justice. His current book project, Atmospheric Intimacies: The Cultural Politics of Air in Contemporary Eco-Narratives, studies breathability, pollution, and uneven exposure across Global South archives. His academic writings have been published/forthcoming in Critical Humanities., Amerasia, and edited volumes by Palgrave Macmillan, Oxford University Press, among others.
Publications
Peer-reviewed publications
- Mukherjee, S. (2025). “Fire in the hole: Appalachia’s elemental narrative in Harlan County, USA and King Coal”. Critical Humanities, 4(1). https://doi.org/10.33470/2836 – 3140.1085
- Mukherjee, S. (Accepted for publication). “Vocal eruptions: Voice, form, and refugee environments in Ritwik Ghatak’s partition trilogy.” Amerasia Journal, 50(1). 2026
- Mukherjee, S. (2025). “Fire’s urban conditions in Nabarun Bhattacharya’s Harbart. In E. Prieto, L. Lanigan, & A. Lappela (Eds.), Cities under stress: Urban discourses of crisis, resilience, and resistance. Palgrave Macmillan.
- Mukherjee, S. (Accepted for publication). “Industrial breeze: Figurations of urban air in Satyajit Ray’s Calcutta trilogy.” In M. Dass & U. Iyer (Eds.), Shift focus: Reframing the Indian new waves. Oxford University Press. 2026.
- Mukherjee, S. (2022). “Cause and kin: Knowledge and nationhood in Kalyug”. In S. Kar Chaudhuri & R. Samaddar (Eds.), ReFocus: The films of Shyam Benegal (pp. 100 – 117). Edinburgh University Press.
Public-facing articles
- Mukherjee, S. (2025, March 30). “Pramoedya Ananta Toer: Hundred years of a fearless Indonesian literary icon.” Scroll.in. https://scroll.in/article/1080757/pramoedya-ananta-toer-hundred-years-of-a-fearless-indonesian-literary-icon
- Mukherjee, S. (2023, May 15). “Only connect: The radical empathy of Mrinal Sen”. The Daily Star. https://www.thedailystar.net/opinion/focus/news/only-connect-radical-empathy-mrinal-sen-3320276
- Mukherjee, S. (2022, June 19 – 25). “Ranajit Guha, India’s oldest living historian.” Frontier Weekly (Web edition in Scroll.in) https://www.frontierweekly.com/articles/vol-54/54 – 51⁄54 – 51-Ranajit%20Guha%20Indias%20Oldest%20Living%20Historian.html
- Mukherjee, S. (2017, December 30). “Legendary essayist Susan Sontag’s short fiction unlocks a different, intimate self of the writer.” Scroll.in. https://scroll.in/article/863189/legendary-essayist-susan-sontags-short-fiction-unlocks-a-different-intimate-self-of-the-writer
- Mukherjee, S. (2015, September 24). “Infernal encounters: Streets and interpretation in Mrinal Sen’s Calcutta trilogy.” Humanities Underground. https://humanitiesunderground.org/infernal-encounters-streets-and-interpretation-in-mrinal-sens-calcutta-trilogy/
Academic review
Mukherjee, S. (2025, July 31). Review of Liquid empire: Water and power in the colonial world, by C. Ross (2024). H‑Asia, H‑Net Reviews.